5/10
Tolerable rehash.
26 June 2011
There isn't really all that much to say about this movie, except that it's pretty much more of the same. It wears its influences on its sleeve, being highly derivative of 28 Days Later, which itself was already fairly derivative. If this is a big problem for you, I'd suggest that you avoid Quarantine 2, because you're just going to get mad at how little originality is on display.

Instead of remaking Rec 2, this movie is more of a standalone story set in the same universe as Quarantine. This time, instead of being set in an apartment complex, it's briefly set on an airplane, then a terminal. Rec (and Quarantine, the American remake) was notable for being shot first person, while this movie is not. That might disappoint some people, but I wasn't really fond of the trend in the first place. The story is contemporaneous with the story of the first movie, with brief references to it here and there. You don't need to have seen the first movie, but that's partially because this movie is so derivative of other movies, you've already seen this plot several times before. That said, as far as these sorts of movies go, this was fairly well acted and competently directed, though the director falls back on using extremely loud noises as a rather annoying crutch. Just when you think there might be character development, extended dialogue, or a moment for reflection, there's an extremely loud noise and a rabid person bursts through a wall. Often, first time directors will err on the side of slow pacing, though I think the characters obviously suffered a bit for the relentlessly fast pacing. The writer/director also wrote Ghost Ship, which was laughably bad. Unfortunately, he hasn't really progressed as a writer since then. I guess if you didn't mind Ghost Ship, you won't be offended by this, either. However, as silly as I found Rec 2's supernatural aspect, it was an interesting twist to the whole "rage virus" subgenre of horror movies. Quarantine 2 plays it straight and just lets loose a bunch of rabid humans on a clichéd group of people who perpetually seem to populate the scripts of hack writers.

If I seem overly harsh, it's only because I'm tired of watching the same movie over and over with very little variation. If you're a fan of scifi/action/horror movies, you've seen this all before, right down to the characters, the action sequences, and the supposed "homages". Why bother being original if nobody calls you on your lack of creativity?
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